#AStoryAWeek | Week 15 (Apr 07 - Apr 13): Elodie Pathfinder's Collected Tales of Reason and Ruin - The Three Spinners (Excerpt)

Week 15 | 2,957 Words

Elodie Pathfinder's Collected Tales of Reason and Ruin - The Three Spinners

There once was a young lady named Derrica, and though she could turn her hand to many talents, the one thing she could not do was spin. Her mother had purchased a rather new-fangled steam spinner, and whilst it was supposed to make the process of spinning wool much quicker, the methods required were proving tricky to grasp. In vain Derrica tried to draw the thread, but the raw wool made her fingers greasy and she could not keep it in her hands. On the occasions where she was lucky enough to pass the thread through the tiny aperture of the machine, the business of pouring water into the boiler, awaiting the slow build of steam that finally started to move the wheel, and then feeding the thread securely amidst its irregular turns, was an art of timing she could not master. Only once had Derrica managed to pass the wool all the way through the machine, and had pulled a limp and uneven strand into place underneath the press that sat between the large wheel and the final destination of the yarn – the bobbin. The press was a heavy and rectangular brass plate attached to a lever that was supposed to lower it onto the spun wool and squeeze it into a fine thread. She pulled the lever down, the brass plate slammed into the table, and the table legs broke. Her first piece of spun thread was pulled from the wheel and drifted to a floor covered with splinters.

Derrica’s mother was incensed. She had purchased the machine at a high price because she believed her fortune was to be made through the spinning of wool. She could not understand why her continual shouting and beating failed to teach Derrica how to be a fine spinner.